Naruto is intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, and not myself. By the way, I will be using italics for flashbacks from now on, not just for author babble.
With a flourish Sakura finished the jutsu that Anko had so painstakingly taught to her in the previous month. Her trump card. She spoke, her voicing ringing out like a bell across the stadium, "Touch of the Rift," while a soft, purple-black speck of light started hovering at the tip of her index finger, which had been left pointing towards the sky by her last seal.
Sakura stared in wonder at the glowing dot of light hovering like an incandescent fairy above her finger. Anko muttered to herself, "Bout freaking time. That took forever," Sakura threw a rather nasty glare at her overly honest teacher. "Alright, that little guy, cute as he may be, is not very nice." Anko had a big grin across her face, "And he is damn hungry. He'll eat pretty well anything that counts as energy. Heat, electric, magic, hell even kinetic. Now as he gets more energy, he'll pick up speed. Its pretty well up to you to stop the think before its going so quick that you can't control it. Weird little jutsu, yeah, but it suits you." Sakura threw another look at her teacher, not even bothering to prompt her to explain what her last comment meant. Anko always said things the instant she thought of them, not a not a second after.
"Katon, Housenka no Jutsu!" Sasuke yelled as he finished his jutsu. Sasuke threw a tremendous volley of fire towards Sakura, who instead of dodging like a sane person, pointed towards him, causing the tiny spark of light to rather lazily make its way into the path of the flames. The instant the trailing edge of his jutsu met hers, the flames died. They were extinguished in a single instant. Outwards, Sakuke looked calm, inwards he was actually very excited. This was shaping into a very real contest. The glowing spark of light came racing towards him, far faster than before, and he knew better than to allow something like that to connect. Sakura, followed her jutsu's lead, and drew her second sword and took off towards Sasuke. He flipped himself out of the ways of the speeding point of light, and threw a volley of shurikens at the charging girl, who was forced to stop her rush to parry the volley, knocking all the shuriken to the ground in quick succession. He gave the wire attached to both his wrist, and now Sakura's Katana, a firm tug, causing her to stumble forward. He threw himself airborne, just in time to evade another assault from Sakura's glowing jutsu, and landed on the wall of the arena, connecting himself to it with Chakra. He felt to wire on his wrist go slack, and barely managed to dodge the Katana that was flying through the air at him. He felt something cold strike him on the lower leg, which immediately went numb, causing him to land heavily on the ground.
Sakura was surpised to see Sasuke fall, and managed to stifle her urge to catch him before he struck the unyielding earth. He immediately, partially to her relief and partially to her chagrin, rolled onto his feet, and took off at a surreal speed towards her. She was shocked when he appeared directly in front of her delivering a positively staggering kick into her chest, throwing her airborne. She hit the ground, bounced, and landed perhaps ten meters from where she had been standing. She forced herself onto her hands and knees, coughing, just in time to see him appear in front of her, ready to strike again, the look in his eyes plainly telling her that he didn't want to hurt her. His descending foot however, said that he intended to win. The instant before he struck, her glowing ally had finally managed to catch up, ramming itself into his back, causing him to double over in pain. Not questioning the sudden reverse in fortunes, she threw herself at him, determined to gain a grip on him, to negate his speed advantage, hooking her one hand behind his back putting to other on his arm, and attempting to force him to the ground. Sasuke, being by far the more agile of the pair, threw himself into a backflip the second she had a hold on him, and used to momentum to catupult the two of them airborne, where he landed on top of her, using his legs to pin hers to the ground, his hands forcing her shoulders into the dirt. Her hands were pressed together, pushing against his chest. She started to do the only thing that made sense, and leaned in, kissing the Uchiha rather softly on the lips, causing his eyes to grow wide. They grew even wider still when he realized that her hands, which he had assumed had been struggling uselessly against him, had been making seals, and she whispered, her lips still pressed to his, "Ninpou, Dokugasu," expelling a breath of poison into his mouth. He instantly hurled himself off of her, coughing violently, trying to expel the poison in his lungs, leaving another wire trailing behing him, this one wrapped around the still prone Sakura's neck.
He gave the wire a gentle tug, giving her just enough time to slip her hands between it and her throat, before pulling it taut. He watched as her cheeks started to go pink from lack of breath, even as spots danced before his own eyes, coughs still wracking his body. Sakura fell to her knees, her cheeks turning purple at this point. Genma took this as his opening, and spoke, "Winner, Uchiha Sasuke." Sasuke immediately let the go of the wire, letting Sakura start breathing again, and struggled to stay on his feet even as the crowd cheered his name. Sakura had ran up to his side, and had grabbed him by the arm. He rather roughly tried to push her away, even managing to sputter, "Sakura," through his badly seared lungs.
She shook her head, "Stop trying to be tough," and forced an antitoxin into his throat, smiling as she touched his lips for the second time in one day.
Well... two updates this week isn't bad. And hey, there still the weeked.